


a thousand cuts

by wall_e_nelson



Category: Bridgerton (TV), Bridgerton Series - Julia Quinn
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-26 14:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30107529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wall_e_nelson/pseuds/wall_e_nelson
Summary: Every single day, Anthony tries very hard not to walk directly into the ocean. (Chapter 4: Eloise asks Anthony for his singular brand of 'assistance' for her upcoming debut.)A collection of non-linear one-shots, headcanons, AUs, and missing scenes for Anthony Bridgerton.
Relationships: Anthony Bridgerton & Benedict Bridgerton, Anthony Bridgerton & Colin Bridgerton, Anthony Bridgerton & Eloise Bridgerton, Anthony Bridgerton & Francesca Bridgerton, Anthony Bridgerton & Gregory Bridgerton, Anthony Bridgerton & Hyacinth Bridgerton, Anthony Bridgerton & Violet Bridgerton, Anthony Bridgerton/Kate Sharma, Anthony Bridgerton/Kate Sheffield, Anthony Bridgerton/Siena Rosso
Comments: 35
Kudos: 108





	1. the second stage

**Author's Note:**

> Most of these deal with his family/friend relationships, some with side characters, some OCs will pop up as necessary. 
> 
> Why Anthony? He is so angry and anxious and sad and smart and misguided and bereft and ALONE but then finally remembers/discovers who he is and I can't stop writing about how and why.
> 
> Primarily angst and h/c, I'm not really a fluff person so I tend not to write it - but who knows? this is intended to be an open-ended series, and if the fluff muse strikes, I'll serve her as well as I can and update the tags.
> 
> Mostly show canon, some book. Colin and Daphne are show-age for this series (9 and 10 years younger than Anthony, respectively). Disclaimer: I've done some research into what a viscount might actually do with his time but I am definitely making most of his day job up, please forgive me my Regency peerage ignorance.

Anthony Bridgerton sat in the solicitor’s office, painstakingly making his way through the small mountain of payments and correspondence that Mr. Randall had organized for him.

The notes were numerous and varied - here was a letter from a tenant detailing a land dispute with a neighbor, and there was another letter from the neighbor calling the first tenant a thief and a liar. Advance requests from a few dependents in Kent as the winter had been very hard and the farmland wouldn’t yield enough to sustain them. Promissory notes for some of the livings in the parishes and direct payments for all the household staff for signature. Multiple letters from the stewards of the lesser properties, notices from local authorities as to trouble between some of his farmers - Anthony wondered how in the hell all this work had gone undone and knew he must seek his father's counsel in prioritizing and allocating these requests.

Then it came back, that rush of a strange, burning pressure to his chest, choking him, _reminding him_. His father was dead. 

He couldn’t quite put a name to this wild, fulsome thing that roiled inside him at the oddest moments. It happened as recently as this morning: he’d been trying to shove Gregory into some clothes as the nursemaid was ill and his mother wouldn’t leave her bed, and he’d grumbled ‘ _where is your father?_ ’ to his fussy baby brother. Then that fierce vibration filled his chest, reminding him that Edmund was gone; for all intents and purposes, Anthony was now Gregory’s father, and something so poisonously noxious filled his mouth it threatened to cut off his air supply right there in the nursery.

“Lord Bridgerton?” A dim voice broke through his melancholy as if someone was shouting at him underwater. “My Lord?”

Anthony swallowed, shoving the burning block he couldn’t name down, and dragged his eyes up to meet his father’s solicitor - no, _his solicitor_ \- seated opposite him across the large oak desk. 

“Yes, Mr. Randall?” Anthony finally managed to find his voice as his quill scratched his signature on another note - his name and _not his father’s_.

The solicitor looked over at his new employer with no small degree of sadness. Master Anthony was an incredibly bright, charismatic boy, possessed of a wicked wit and enough inventive mischievousness for the six other Bridgerton children combined, but there was no sign of that young man in the lifeless, dead-eyed version who had arrived at his office today. Randall only hoped what he had to say would not hurt the boy further.

“I am loath to bring this up, my Lord, but considering recent circumstances, I dare not delay any longer. Your father has set himself a task this year, and it is of the utmost urgency and importance that you complete it.”

The young Viscount finally looked up at him, quill paused between the inkwell and the paper. “What task is this?”

Mr. Randall cleared his throat and steeled himself. The Bridgertons were in a precarious position, and it was best to act quickly before any more misfortune occurred. 

“The former Viscount had yet to set livings for your brothers, or for your mother in case of his death or your marriage, nor had he decided dowries for your sisters. I would advise finalizing all these amounts as soon as possible.”

His words rang out in the silence of the small office as loudly as church bells. Anthony was staring at him, eyes wild, mouth tight. “What do you mean ‘He had yet to set livings’? Is not all that dictated by precedent and the limits of the property?”

Randall shook his head. “Normally, the title would allow for two or three livings without significant adjustments, but with all your brothers, a mother, and a full three dowries, not to mention the additional expense of the last child, we will have to carefully consider how to meaningfully provide for everyone in a sustainable manner.”

Randall’s voice sounded very far away to Anthony, muted by a ringing in his ears. It was impossible that his father hadn’t already made these arrangements - that it should be left up to _Anthony_ to decide how much money his siblings should have to live upon marriage or maturity was beyond the reach of reason. He could sign notes, he would answer letters, he was willing to settle tenant’s disputes, but this could not be his job. This was a father’s job, that of a patriarch, not the work of an 18-year-old son who had barely learned how to maintain a ledger. 

“You must be mistaken, Mr. Randall. My father must have already made these decisions and neglected to tell you.”

Mr. Randall gazed sadly at Anthony over the rim of his spectacles, choosing to ignore the panic in the young man's voice. “I am sorry, Lord Brigderton. I discussed this with the former Viscount a few months ago and we agreed that as soon as you were safely off to Oxford, he would settle these lingering questions.”

The ringing in Anthony’s ears grew so loud his hands flew to cover his ears involuntarily. His breaths felt as if he had broken glass stuck in his lungs, and he tried desperately to swallow the bile rising in his chest, but it was no use. His throat opened, and Anthony bolted to the bin next to the desk and retched, gasping and spitting and shaking on his knees as the rest of his life closed in around him. His mother’s wellbeing, his siblings’ comfort, health, security, and happiness, the thousands of souls dependent on him as the Viscount to ensure their homes and livelihoods, the entirety of the Bridgerton lineage, good name, and success were now in his woefully inadequate keeping. It was all his responsibility.

Christ, how was he to look his brothers in the eye after deciding how much money they would get to live on? What if he couldn’t afford enough of a dowry for his sisters? How was he to ever face his own mother - _his pregnant, heartbroken mother_ \- now that he had to decide her monthly allowances? Every feeling revolted: that the life his father had cultivated and pursued - a wife and soon to be seven other children - was now entrusted to Anthony's care and safekeeping, while his own life, the life he would have chosen for himself was buried in the family crypt, bound up forever with his father’s decaying corpse.

The wild, wretched acid rose again in Anthony’s chest, and he was finally able to put a name to this damnable feeling dogging his every step since the funeral.

Rage. 

Anthony was _furious_.

He was so angry he felt he must be going _mad_. 

“Are you all right?” The solicitor had his hands outstretched, hovering, with the same sad countenance he’d seen in every single face since Edmund had passed. 

“Don’t you dare pity me.” He snarled, jumping to his feet, his heart pounding so loudly he could feel it in the tips of his fingers.

Startled, the solicitor took a few steps back, shaken at the frenzy in the young viscount’s voice.

“My apologies, My Lord. We can continue this discussion at another time, but this should not be put off any longer, for the sake of your family--”

Anthony crossed the distance between them, hands shooting out and gripping Randall by his coat, silencing him. “They’re not my family,” he hissed, throwing each word out as if they were knives. “They’re _his_.” 

The words hung in the air between them, vile and macabre and childish and true, and something inside of Anthony snapped. He let go of Randall and bolted for the door, slamming it shut behind him. 

* * *

Hours later, well past nightfall, he slipped off his horse outside the Bridgerton graves in the Kent parish. It was foolhardy and dangerous, making the trip from London to Kent on horseback at this hour, especially in the rain, but the vibrating furor inside him paid no heed to reason. He walked inside the largest of the family mausoleums, eyes adjusting to the darkness until he found himself in front of his father’s crypt. It was still nameless, as the masons wouldn’t be finished with the markers for another few weeks, but Anthony would know the stones encasing his father's body anywhere. 

“I cannot believe you.” The words sprung from him, unbidden. “A bee, father. A fucking BEE.”

His hands clenched in his hair as he paced the small stone floor.

“At the very least, could you not have made it dramatic? Or explainable, for fuck’s sake? Lost at sea? Off at war? Assassinated for political leanings? A simple cold turned influenza? Something, ANYTHING that makes actual sense?”

A wild laugh bubbled up inside him, releasing something huge and incoherent he hadn't known was there. Words began falling out his mouth, tumbling, one after the other. Words of every shape and size and stripe. Angry words, begging words, curse words and questions, epithets and apologies and pleas. He hurled them all, one by one, at his father’s grave, relishing the shape of them, their harshness, their raw simplicity, a relief to his ears after weeks of swimming in tentative whispers and weak, half-empty sentiments. He yelled and screamed and reasoned and shouted and begged and pleaded until he was exhausted, and he collapsed against the wall of the crypt, spent and emptied out of everything.

“God, Papa”, he whispered, his voice scraped raw. “What am I to do?”

Anthony swiped at his eyes and let his head fall back against the stone, cold and damp and unforgiving. 

“You took my future from me, and gave me yours instead.” He sniffled a bit. “I know I must forgive you, but I simply don't know how."

Tears pricked at his eyes like needles. He let them fall. 

“I’m afraid, Father", he choked out. "I’m afraid of everything I don’t know, of all the ways I will fail, of the enormous empty space you left that I’ll never be able to fill.”

The boy twisted his hands together, fingers pulling at the family ring, then feeling the outline of his father’s watch in his waistcoat pocket. Anthony pulled out the watch and held it tightly to his chest, the seconds ticking asynchronously against his heartbeat, and cried.

He wept for hours, curled up against the stones holding his father’s corpse and the life Anthony would never have until the sun crept over the horizon. 


	2. In Breech

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to write about Hyacinth’s birth (described as ‘perilous’ in the show) and wound up writing a much larger story about Anthony and Violet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I have next to no knowledge of childbirth, but I did some research and fingers crossed I didn't mangle it too badly.

“What would you have me do?”

Violet looked at her eldest as she paced around the room, hands on her stomach. “What do you mean?”

The boy shifted his weight, the fingers of one hand worrying at the family ring on the other.

“I know that Father was always with you for the births, should I-”

“No.” Violet closed her eyes as another spasm overtook her. “No, you are not to enter this room. None of you are.”

His eyes followed her as she walked, fingers still twisting the ring. “I’ve sent for the doctor and the midwives, they will be here soon,” he stepped aside as some housemaids entered with Mrs. Wilson, carrying water and clean linens, “and Colin is off to the Amhursts’ house for the night, as per your request. What else shall I do?”

Violet paced the floor again and grimaced. “Gregory should already be asleep, if you can entertain the girls until their bedtimes, I would appreciate it.”

His eyes moved from the maids to the bed and back to Violet. “Very well.” But he didn’t leave, lingering in the doorway, eyes darting everywhere, still shifting from one foot to the other. “I wish you would let me stay.”

Violet Bridgerton was normally a patient woman, but it was dreadfully warm for an early November evening, she was in pain, her husband was dead, and her eldest son was irritating her no end with his persistence and his constant fidgeting. “Your wishes are noted, Anthony. Please attend your sisters.”

He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “Father would not want you to be alone.”

“Your father would want you to be in here even less,” she snapped at him, her words clipped and tight. “Do not presume to tell me what his wishes would be in this matter.”

“He would want--”

“What he would _want_ , Anthony, is for you to be studying at Oxford, instead of here, play-acting at being head of household!”

Anthony’s expression soured at the familiar contours of this particular argument and Violet’s pointed cruelty. He and his mother had been fighting over what Edmund would want for months now, ever since Anthony had announced he was deferring Oxford for a semester. 

"Your father would not hear of you delaying your education.” She had shouted at him, livid at his choice, furious that he had not even mentioned it to her before writing the school.

"Well, he’s not here to render his opinion, is he?” Anthony spat back at her, using Edmunds’ desk as a barrier between them, as had become his habit. “I must do what I think is best, and I’m not leaving you to bear a child alone mere months after his passing. It is one semester, I can make up the coursework. Considering my circumstances, I’m sure the Headmaster will be amenable--”

“It does not matter!” Violet cut him off. “You should have discussed it with me, as you knew your father would never approve!”

“What would be the point? No matter your preference, I would have deferred.”

“Anthony Bridgerton, I am still your mother--”

“I am responsible for this family--”

“And I am still responsible for my children!” she snarled at him, teeth bared in the dim light of the candles flickering on the desk. 

The silence following her declaration was profound. 

“I am of age and I hold a title, Mother,” Anthony replied with a cold indifference Violet had never heard from her son before. “I am no longer beholden to your wishes or desires. The decision has been made. I will leave for school once the child is born and I am assured of everyone’s health and the household’s financial stability.” He sat down and picked up his quill as if they were discussing something no more rigorous than the weather, although he could not stop his mother from seeing how his hands shook. “Will that be all?”

Violet fled the study as quickly as she’d been able.

* * *

That argument had been the first of many, each more abrasive and cruel than the last. Soon they moved on from fighting over his father’s wishes for his schooling, to what Edmund would think of Eton or Harrow for Colin (Colin wished to attend Harrow to be with his friend George Amhurst, and Mother, of course, wished to indulge him). They argued over whether he would think it financially wise to take the whole family to Aunt Winnie in Bath for the holidays, or if his father would give permission for Benedict to spend the upcoming summer with a friend’s family in Scotland. As recently as last week Anthony and Violet could be found in the Grand Hall of Bridgerton House shouting themselves hoarse over whether the former Viscount would allow Franny to begin dining with the rest of the family. 

The situation was becoming untenable. He was working so very hard to step up and _be_ the head of Bridgerton House, to do the job that wasn’t his but was left to him regardless, but all he had accomplished was infuriating his mother to a point where they could barely speak civilly anymore.

Abruptly, he was brought back to himself with a pointed clearing of his mother’s throat.

“Anthony, I have asked you three times now to please attend to your sisters.” Violet found herself wondering what this serious young man with his hands fisted at his sides had done with her eldest son. Truth be told, she hadn’t seen the bright, chaotic boy with the wry wit and easy smile she thought she’d raised in months, and every time she cast her eyes on this furious stranger she could not help but feel as if she might have lost both Edmund and Anthony all at once.

“Yes, Mother.” His voice cracked, whether in fury or heartbreak, Violet didn’t know. “Send for me if you have any need.” He turned on his heel and left without so much as a backward glance.

* * *

“Will it take long, Brother?” Anthony looked over at Eloise, and Daphne let out an annoyed huff from behind him as the turn of his head caused the ribbon she was tying on the end of his braid to slip. 

“What do you mean, Sister?” He asked, mindful not to move his head again as he handed Daphne another pink ribbon.

“Will having a baby take long?” Eloise clarified, tossing one of her many dolls at him.

“Usually, yes.” Anthony said, catching it and gently tossing it back. 

“Daphne says it hurts, too.”

His eldest sister turned Anthony’s head forcefully to the left to continue her work. “Well, it does, Rose said so.” Daphne said as she twisted the hair on the side of her brother’s head into a braid.

“Rose is correct, it does hurt. But when it’s over, there’s a baby and that’s always a good thing.” 

“Another, please!” Daphne chirped, and Anthony dutifully passed back the last ribbon, this time a green. He hoped this would be the end of her endeavors, but then Francesca crawled into his lap with at least another twenty clutched in her tiny fist, and began arranging them by color on his legs. Their eldest brother sighed, the last time the girls used this many ribbons the valet had to cut them out of his hair. 

Eloise plopped down unceremoniously next to him. “Does it hurt for the men too?”

“Ouch!” Anthony winced as Daphne pulled a little too hard. “Not physically. But it is hard on the spirit to be unable to help while our Mother is in pain.”

His seven-year-old sister harrumphed and lolled about the floor, going limp. “Ugh, it just isn’t fair!”

Daphne reached down and took a blue ribbon from Fanny’s little piles. “Rose told me it hurt so much when her sister was born that her mother died.”

Anthony froze, making a mental note to speak to the young maid about minding what she was about in front of his sisters.

“Will Mama die too, Brother?” Little Franny looked up at him, her baby lisp tripping slightly over the question, her eyes wide. 

Eloise sat up quickly with a small ‘oh!’ sound, Daphne’s hands stilled in his hair, and Anthony silently prayed that he find the right words to ease his sister's fears.

“Only God can answer that question, Franny,” he said, willing his voice to be steady. “But there is little cause to be afraid, Mama has had quite a bit of practice at this. She knows what she is about, having already had the seven of us.” He took her small hand in his, gently rubbing his thumb over it in a soothing motion. “I’ll be nearby though, and I’ll do my best to help her as much as I can.”

No one spoke for a few seconds, then Franny turned in his lap and hugged him fiercely. Eloise and Daphne added their arms too, and he held all three of his sisters close, humming a lullaby softly until the nursemaid came in a few minutes later to put the girls to bed.

* * *

Anthony pulled out his watch as he paced the corridor outside the bedroom with a sinking feeling in his stomach. 17 minutes past 4 in the morning.

This was taking too long. 

He remembered the births of all his siblings save Benedict, and none of them had been like this - the sound of his mother screaming loudly enough to draw blood filled the hallway and Anthony forced himself to breathe deeply. He was neither a fool nor child, he knew that childbirth was tremendously dangerous, but it had truly not occurred to him that after seven children, the process could still be a threat to his mother’s life.

It was scaring the shit out of him. 

Anthony jumped clear out of his skin as the door flew open and a maid ran down the hall, the doctor exiting behind her. “There you are, Lord Bridgerton,” he said, and Anthony clasped his hands behind his back so the doctor could not see how badly they shook. “What is wrong, Doctor?’

“The baby is in breech.”

Anthony stared uncomprehendingly at the physician. “What does that mean?” he whispered.

“Usually children are born head first, but sometimes, particularly in mothers who’ve had many other children, they can come feet first - and get stuck or have a hard time passing in the birth canal.” 

Anthony suddenly felt very, very small. “Are you saying the baby is...stuck?”

“At the moment, it seems the baby is still coming, but both the infant and your mother are having a very difficult time. At this stage, I feel it prudent to inform you that you should prepare yourself.”

The walls and ceiling of the Bridgerton home pulled even further away from Anthony, his skin turning so cold it was as if he’d fallen through a sheet of ice. “Prepare myself for what?” he croaked, choking on the words.

The doctor placed a steadying hand on Anthony’s arm. “Your mother may be in danger of losing the child if she cannot deliver it. It might be possible to save the child with a cesarean procedure - I would perform an operation to get the child out, but it's highly unlikely your mother would survive.”

“No.” Anthony said, his head shaking involuntarily. None of this was possible. “No. No. No.”

The doctor pressed a handkerchief into his hand, and Anthony stared at it dumbly until he realized his face was wet. “As I indicated, there is still time, but I thought it best to come prepare you in case we require you to make a decision.” 

“Doctor--” He was cut off as one of the midwives opened the door, and Anthony heard his mother wail so sharply his hair stood on end. The physician disappeared inside, leaving Anthony in the hall with the sharp, metallic tang of blood in his mouth as the hallway turned black around him and the doctor’s words sank inside him like stones. 

If his mother were to die tonight - to think of himself alone with six or seven children to raise was incomprehensible. It was not possible that after suffering so much at the loss of their father, his siblings should also lose their mother. God could not be this cruel. 

But he knew, in his broken heart, that God could indeed be just this cruel. 

Anthony’s eyes hardened and he straightened his back, it was time to stop standing in this blasted hallway like a coward. His mother needed him, propriety be damned, her wishes be damned, God himself be damned. He threw the bedroom door open: she was bent nearly double in bed, face contorting with pain as a bone chilling wail rattled the windows. He ran to her side, and fell to his knees next to her on the floor, taking her hand in both of his and whispering “I’m here.”

His mother sobbed, dazed and weary. “Edmund, help me,” she moaned. Anthony’s breath hitched, and he clutched her hand tighter, moving the hair plastered to her forehead off her face. “Mother, it’s me. Anthony.”

“Oh, God” his mother cried, tears sliding down her cheek. “I told you not to come in here.”

“And as I’ve told you, Mother”, Anthony said, keeping his voice as steady and soothing as he had with his sisters a few hours ago, even as his heart threatened to pound through his chest in terror, “I am no longer beholden to your wishes or desires.”

Her eyes met his, the smallest of smiles playing on her face before she gripped his hand and another scream ripped from her throat, echoing throughout the house. All around him, the midwives and doctor were shouting words of encouragement, instructions to bear down, and Anthony repeated their words into her ear in his steady, soothing tone, gently holding her hand in both of his and letting her grip as tightly as she needed, and praying silently to God to show mercy just this once, to spare the family any more pain, to let both the infant and his mother see sunrise alive and whole.

To Anthony’s eternal gratitude, his prayers were answered. 

“What is her name?” he asked, heart still pounding somewhere in his ears, blood racing in wild, frenetic relief, as his mother held the last of her husband’s children in her arms. 

“Your father wanted ‘Hyacinth’ if it was a girl,” his mother replied shakily, “for my favorite flower.” She clutched the baby to her chest and tears blossomed anew in her eyes. “Oh, Anthony,” she whispered. “I miss him so.”

Anthony said nothing, just put his arms around Hyacinth and his mother and let her sob into his shoulder. 

* * *

The midwives and doctor left at dawn, leaving Violet and her maids with some medicines and herbal remedies to speed recovery. Anthony helped move her to a clean bed to sleep, and now he was sitting on the bench outside his mother’s room in the quiet half-light of the new morning with Hyacinth swaddled in his arms, finally, blessedly, alone. 

Or not. One of the Bridgerton nursemaids was waiting politely at a respectable distance on the landing.

“I can take her if you wish, My Lord. The wet nurse just arrived, and she will be hungry soon.”

He cleared his throat. “I will bring her in a few minutes, Alice. You needn’t trouble yourself.”

“Yes, My Lord.” She bobbed a quick curtsy and left. Anthony waited until he could no longer hear her footsteps on the stairs, and turned his attention back to the small bundle in his arms. 

“Hello,” he cooed, tracing a finger gently down the slope of her nose. “I'm your eldest brother, Anthony.” He pulled the swaddle a bit tighter around her arms where it had come loose. “You have other brothers, of course, but as I am the eldest, I am the best and most important one.”

She made some kind of baby noise, a tiny little grunt, and he could not help but smile. “I knew we were of like minds,” he murmured. “Let us not tell the others, they shall never understand.” 

Anthony sat silently for a moment, rocking her to and fro as he finally found the words he was searching for, the truly important ones she had to hear.

“It is a great sadness that you come into the world without a father, but you should know that he was the kindest and best of men, and I’m sorry you’ll never know him. But you will know me, and I promise I’ll be for you what he was for all of us.” 

He took a moment in the fulsome silence of the new morning to think of Edmund, and how close the Brigdertons had come to mourning not just their father, but their mother and sister as well.

“Before I bring you to the nursery,” he said softly to her, wiping his burning eyes on his sleeve, “I want to tell you how thankful and grateful I am to you. You see, I was terribly afraid for a few hours that I would be forced to make a choice that would have cost your mother her life in order to see you safely into the world. But you came out all on your own, sparing me and all your family the greatest heartbreak imaginable, and I am forever in your debt.”

He pressed his forehead gently to hers and kissed her on the tip of her tiny nose. “We are first and last, you and I.” She gurgled at him sweetly. “Anthony and Hyacinth, the Bridgerton bookends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: In the epilogue, Anthony and Violet finally talk to instead of past each other--


	3. In Breech: Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anthony and Violet finally talk to instead of past each other.

Anthony walked into his mother’s room and found the 3 girls and Colin clustered around the cradle, alternately cooing at Hyacinth and arguing about who she looked the most like. His mother was in bed, holding Gregory in her arms as he fussed with one of those interlocking wooden baby toys. 

“Anthony!” Colin ran to him and jumped, his brother caught him and whirled him about. “How exciting! Now we are even, there are four girls and four boys!”

The young Viscount rolled his eyes and tickled Colin. “So pleased to see you’ve mastered basic mathematics.” His brother screeched and squirmed out of his arms, running back to the cradle. Anthony followed him, tousling Daphne’s hair, and she looked up at him wanly. Anthony frowned. “Are you unwell, Daff?”

She shook her head. “I am well, Brother. It was hard to sleep last night.”

Anthony took her hand and squeezed. “Yes, it was.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out all the ribbons he’d extricated from his hair once she’d gone to bed, handing them to her. “Thank you for making me look so very pretty last night, Sister. Humboldt was _quite_ undone.” 

She giggled and relieved him of his finery as Anthony turned to his mother. “Might we have a word? In private?”

Violet gazed at him, inscrutable, and nodded. “Children!” Colin, Daphne, Eloise, and Francesca instantly quieted. “I am feeling quite tired. Please help escort Gregory and Hyacinth back to the nursery.”

Anthony picked up his youngest brother from the bed and handed him off to the nurse, who ushered the four other children out of the room, and another nursemaid entered and gathered Hyacinth from the cradle, leaving Anthony and Violet alone.

“What is it, Anthony?”

He moved to the window and looked out into the street, it was strangely quiet for the early afternoon hour. “How are you feeling, Mother?”

She frowned at him. “You had me dismiss the children so you could ask me that?”

Anthony swallowed his irritation, must she argue even a simple inquiry over her health? “No. But as a start, I would very much like to know how you are feeling.”

Her frown deepened. “I’m fine, Anthony. Very tired, and in some pain, but it seems I shall be fully recovered in a week or thereabouts.”

He kept his gaze on the window, noting how one of the panes was cracked by the joist and made a mental note to look into the cost of replacing it. “It seems we are lucky then.”

“Will you please come to the point?” Violet groused. “If you must waste my time, can you do so when I have not just had a very difficult birth?”

Anthony turned from the window and leaned against the frame. “Are you aware of what the Doctor told me last night?”

Violet shook her head. 

“He told me that the baby was in breech and that I should prepare myself in case a cesarean procedure was required.” He spared a glance at his mother - what little color she had in her cheeks was gone. “I assume you know what that is?”

She gave a minute nod, the gravity of her situation creating a sinking pit in her stomach. Every woman she knew of who had to undergo a cesarean had perished. 

Anthony crossed his arms over his chest in a bid to prevent his hands from shaking. “The doctor informed me that if he deemed you unable to deliver, that I” - he paused, his throat working, he would _not cry_ \- “I would have to make a choice whether to allow the procedure to save the child and that you would be unlikely to survive.”

“Oh, dearest.” Anthony took an involuntary step forward at the endearment, it had been so very long since he’d heard it. Violet’s eyes were shining with tears. “I knew it was a hard birth, harder than any of the others save yours, but I did not comprehend at the time the truth of my situation, nor what was being asked of you. I am so sorry-”

Anthony stopped her. “Please do not apologize, Mother.” He paused again to steady his breaths. “I do not care to contemplate any other outcome than the one we were gifted. If God had not seen fit to spare us last night, I do not know what we would have done. You are our mother. We need you.”

He left the window and sat down at the foot of the bed. “That being said, you and I have not been handling the management of this home all that well of late.”

Violet shook her head quickly. “No, we have not.”

He was quiet for a moment, fingers tracing the pattern in the quilt. “Last night, I prayed to any power that would heed to keep you and Hyacinth safe. I knew that should we be granted such mercy, that you and I must find a way to move past this - this endless disagreement of what we think father would want.” He took a breath, fingers moving from the quilt to turning the family ring on his hand. “The only thing I am sure he would want is that we cease arguing about him - in fact, he would be quite ashamed of us, batting about his memory this way, as if he were a cudgel we use only to hurt the other.”

He moved a bit closer to her and took her hand in his. “We will always be the two people who miss him most. I wish that would unite us, not divide us.”

Violet looked down at his large hand covering hers, her mind flashing back to Anthony running down the slope at Aubrey Hall, eyes alight, face covered in jam from a picnic, his tiny hands outstretched toward her in joy. Her heart lurched painfully: she brought herself forcefully back to the present. “I do not deny the truth of what you say, we have certainly been acting foolishly. But Anthony, you are my son, my child. You are their brother. It pains me so deeply to see you acting as if you are their father, as if you would see him erased. It pains me when you give me orders as if I did not give birth to you in this very room.”

Anthony stood abruptly and began pacing the floor next to the bed. “None of that is my intention, Mother, and you must know I would _never_ have him erased. In fact, it is quite the opposite, I have sworn to do my utmost to keep him alive in their memory. But I am no longer just their brother, nor am I any longer just your child, and you cannot keep acting as if I am if we are to have any hope of peace between us.”

He turned to face her then, determined and deliberate. 

“This is, without question, the hardest thing I will ever do. It is not my wish to assume responsibility for the care of my father’s wife and children, but nonetheless, I _must_ , and I need you to accept me not only as just your son, but also as your partner.” He sat back down next to her and took her hands in his again. “I do not wish to fight with you over when Franny may eat at the table, or if Daphne has practiced enough pianoforte or any of the other thousands of minutia we have quarreled over since Father passed. I concede that these are not my concerns: I grossly overstepped in my haste to fill the space he left.” He cast his eyes down, ashamed. “I wanted them all to feel as if he were still here, but he is not, and I was wrong to try and force it.” He took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for battle. “It is the great tragedy of our lives, but it is the truth: I am Head of Bridgerton House. The general well-being of the family is my concern. Financial considerations are my concern. Colin’s schooling, Benedict in Scotland, holidays in Bath, are all well within the purview of a head of household. As much as it may pain you, I need you to accept me as such. Not just as your son, but as the head of this family, if we are to have any hope of succeeding.” 

For the first time in months, there was no anger, or indifference, or bite in his voice; he spoke with a simple, direct honesty that seemed to melt Violets’ resentments and resolve. She looked at her eldest in the early afternoon light: the sun glinting gold on his hair as he addressed her in this direct and serious way, all at once too old in a body too young, and knew in her heart that the boy he had been, the boy with the jam on his face and the wicked smile who relished chaos and made her laugh - _oh, how he had made her laugh_ \- that cherished boy was lost to her forever.

“I miss you.” Tears flooded her eyes, overflowing down her face. She reached out and cupped his cheek, and he froze, unsure, and for once unguarded. “I miss my son.”

His eyes flashed with a hint of delighted warmth, a moment of the child she loved, and he squeezed her hand tightly. “And I miss my mother.” 

They sat together in the silence of the afternoon sun for a few moments, a mother and son, before Anthony’s expression shuttered and the flicker of the boy he had been was gone. He gently extracted a hand and passed a handkerchief to her. Violet wiped her eyes before she spied the monogram, and raised an eyebrow questioningly at Anthony. 

“The doctor’s,” he volunteered, smiling slightly. “He loaned it to me last night.”

“For my tears?” she teased, and Anthony’s smile stretched into a full grin. “No, Mother, to mop up all my sweat. Supporting you through childbirth is quite the endeavor, no wonder Father was always so fit.” 

Violet laughed, swatting him lightly on the arm, and settled back on her pillows. “I do not wish to make this harder for you, Anthony.” she finally replied. “And you are correct, you are no longer just their brother or simply my son, however much we might wish otherwise.” She contemplated her hand in his and sighed. “But I cannot promise it will ever be easy between us. Raising children is difficult, I cannot imagine it will be any less difficult when my son is my partner. We have many arguments ahead of us, you and I.”

“On that, we are agreed.” Anthony stood, there were a great many tasks to accomplish, including the cleaning and return of a now well-worn handkerchief and a letter to Benedict with the first good news he could share in months. He paused in the doorway, and turned back to his mother, a wry smile tugging at his mouth. “If I may, I would make another small request of us: if we are to argue, let us please only use the study? I've had quite enough of screaming at each other across the Grand Hall.”

Violet laughed then, and so did he. “The study it is, dearest.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Eloise needs Anthony's particular brand of 'assistance' for her upcoming debut season--


	4. hovering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eloise asks Anthony for his singular brand of 'assistance' for her upcoming debut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: still have no real idea what a Viscount might do with his time, and neither does the internet. The 'tasks' are all fabricated--

Anthony opened up the ledger to begin his most unpleasant task as a prodigious landowner - the monthly process of cataloging and cross-checking the full roster of tenant payments. Most landowners left this kind of work up to their stewards, and up until a few years prior, Anthony had as well, until a spot inspection of his records by his new solicitor revealed that one of his stewards was skimming payments. Anthony reimbursed the tenants, the steward was working off his debt in Australia, and now he personally vetted his records every month in case someone else was trying to cheat his people.

He did trust his solicitor: maybe if he paid Jamie a few more pounds per month he’d be willing to take this horrid job off his plate. Not that Anthony would wish this painstakingly annoying task on anyone. Well, maybe some people--

His ears caught the sound of a small shuffle outside the study door. He closed his eyes for a moment to listen; when he heard a small ‘whuff!’ of breath he grinned and resumed copying the column of numbers on his scratch sheet.

“Stop hovering, Eloise.”

She popped into the doorway, mouth agape. “How did you know?”

Anthony rolled his eyes and started a new column for the next set of tenants. “I know _precisely_ how each of you sounds while you hide when seeking the courage to ask me for something you know I will refuse.”

She dropped into the chair opposite him, glowering. “Fine. I do have a request to make of you, and I am very hopeful you will not refuse me, dearest brother?”

Anthony put down the quill and very demurely put his head in his hands, the very picture of patient compliance.

Eloise groaned and stomped her foot. “Stop making fun of me!”

He graced her with his most innocent and benign smile. “I assure you I treat all your requests to disown Hyacinth with the utmost sincerity-”

“I need you to do for me what you did for Daphne last season!” she burst out.

Her words were met with silence, and when she raised her eyes to her brother’s face, she found him staring at her in angry disbelief.

“Whatever are you talking of, Eloise?” he snapped, in a tone that suggested she very quickly reconsider her approach.

She wrung her hands together in her lap - Benedict could be persuaded with a cigarette and a few soft, imploring words, and Colin could simply be bribed or tricked. But Anthony was sharp, discerning, and suspicious - he would not be easily talked around. In a flash, she recalled the docile, flattering way she induced the Royal Consigliere to reveal the Queen’s plans for the capture of Lady Whistledown, perhaps that same tactic would work with Anthony as well. 

“Brother, at the beginning of Daphne’s season, you were so very careful of all of her courtships, so very cautious in who you felt appropriate for Daphne and I would very much like you to do the same for me.” She folded her hands delicately in her lap and tilted her head slightly, her eyes wide, feeling quite proud of her performance. “As you well know, I am fearful of my debut and would greatly appreciate your meticulous care in vetting who may approach. I know the whole incident with Berbrooke put you off of your duties in that regard, but you need not have any fear of that, rest assured I will not be anywhere near the Dark Walk, as Daphne was, no one may hold anything over you on that score.”

Anthony’s brows drew together first in puzzlement, then in anger. “Do you think me stupid?”

Her mouth fell open “No, I--”

Anthony cut her off. “It seems to me that you must think me stupid, that I would not instantly know what this is about--”

“Brother, that is not--”

“How dare you come in here under the pretext of asking for my help when you are trying to _use_ me to get around your mother!” he hissed, his jaw clenched in anger. “Do not lie to me, Eloise. You come in here, all meekness and desperation, as if I won’t know you wish me to act the idiot bulldog again for your debut so Mother can be distracted and furious with me, instead of you.”

Eloise glared at him mulishly. It truly was irritating, how quickly he could always see through her. 

Suddenly, Anthony leaned forward on his desk with startling vehemence. “Do you have any idea what my idiocy cost our sister last season?” His volume was normal, but he spoke with such intensity Eloise felt herself shrink in her chair in shame. “Do you have any comprehension of how close she came to a life of complete and utter misery, because of my obstinate foolishness?”

She picked at a bit of loose leather on the arm of her chair, nodding. The day at the park, the carriage ride home, Daphne’s terror and hopeless resignation were forever burned in her memory.

“I trapped Daphne in a marriage to a mean-spirited selfish imbecile, and the only reason she is not currently imprisoned as his wife is because of the quick maneuvering of our mother.” 

Her brother cast his eyes down on the desk, and when he looked at her again, his face was etched in pain and his eyes haunted.

“Eloise, the shame and guilt I carry for what I did to her will follow me into my grave. I will not act that way again, not even to assuage the trepidation of a most beloved sister.” 

She bit her lip. She must not cry, not now. “Please, Anthony--”

“No, Eloise. I cannot help you in the way that you wish.”

Eloise knew all her eldest brother’s tones, and this one was final. 

“It might not be as bad as you imagine, you know,” he said gently. “It’s not as if you’ve never been slavishly in love - were you not slightly mad for George Amhurst when you were just out of leading strings?”

She kicked the front of his desk, trying not to smile. “Do not mention that wretched boy. He is off on his Grand Tour and will obviously betroth himself to some bewitching Teutonic goddess. In all likelihood, we shall never see him again.”

Anthony smirked. “If he has indeed thrown you and your 12-year-old passions over for a woman of the continent, then he clearly was not worth the hundreds of pages you devoted to him in your diary.” 

She scoffed and settled back in the chair. “I’ll grant you he rated a page, maybe a page and a half, but no more than that, Brother.”

Despite the lightness of their jests, she was clearly unhappy - her fingers picked away at whatever was closest, her leg swung impatiently back and forth, and her other foot tapped incessantly on the rug. His heart went out to her and he wondered, as he had several times a day for the last eleven years, what comfort their father might offer at such a moment.

He did not know. He never knew. 

Anthony could only offer what he had himself discovered on accompanying his mother to more balls, parties, and dinners than any man should. “You could simply try to enjoy yourself as best you can, you know. Even I have found ways to entertain myself, and sometimes I even manage a mild amount of fun.”

She cut her eyes to him, quizzical. “I beg your pardon?”

“Luckily for all of us, you have escaped the pressures of being the firstborn daughter -” she rolled her eyes at that “- so there is no real hurry. You need not be married this season or next, or even the year following. You need not ever be married if that is your preference; I certainly would never force you to be so, and there is enough family money to secure your future should you wish to remain unwed. You can simply attend parties, socialize, appreciate the good people you do meet, handle your mother as best you can, and tell any men not worth your attention to sod off.” Eloise gaped at him in delighted surprise as he winced at his own indiscretion. “What I mean: politely tell them you do not wish to dance, and do not repeat that term anywhere within Mother or your younger siblings’ hearing.”

She flashed him a grin briefly before her brows furrowed and she groaned. “But it is such a horrendous waste of time when I have no interest in marriage!”

“Eloise, anyone within 50 miles of London knows you have no interest in marriage, and as we’ve discussed, that need not be your motivation. But you must debut. You have no choice on that score.”

“Why must it be now?”

“That you must sort out with your mother.” He looked down at his ledger and scratch sheet ruefully, the damnable items waiting patiently for him to continue his miserable chore. “All I can offer as wisdom gained from being the eldest brother is this: there are no end of unpleasant tasks we would avoid at all costs, but they must be done regardless. Putting them off does nothing except make them more unpleasant. If you know something must be done, might as well hold your nose and simply be done with it.”

She twisted her fingers in and out of the loose fabric of her dress, eyes downcast, before finally arranging the jumble of candid words in her head into sensible sentences.

“Forgive me, Anthony, I must speak plainly. I do not want this. Every feeling revolts. Whenever I think of being forced by polite society to dance with men who have nothing of interest or intelligence to say, who see me only as a means to an end, to legitimize their household and bear their children and ignore their despicable indiscretions, I feel like vomiting. It makes me physically ill.”

Eloise, speaking so plainly from the heart, could not know how her words were affecting her brother. Anthony felt as if she had cut him with a knife - were these not exactly his intentions in marrying this year? Eloise was notoriously singular on the institution of marriage, he knew most women wished desperately to be wed but to hear his sister express her fears in such a way cast his own anticipated plans for the season in a stark and unflattering light.

Was it so very wrong of him to approach marriage as if it were just another unpleasant task he must complete?

At some point in his life, perhaps he had been as romantic as Daphne, Colin, Benedict, or even Eloise, in her own strange way. But his experiences with Love, in the fullest sense of the word, had brought him nothing but disaster. He’d had relationships and mistresses aplenty over the years, and even fancied himself deeply attached once or twice, but his year-long affair with Siena, if anyone could label what they had suffered with so polite a term, had broken him in places he hadn’t known were whole. 

Anthony swallowed the bitter, acrid aftertaste that always accompanied her name. God, what a mess he’d made of it, of her, of the whole damn situation. 

He had caused enough suffering and suffered enough - Anthony would leave Love to people who had more heart left than he. As unflattering, unromantic, and unpleasant as it was, he needed to marry to secure the Bridgerton name and lineage, and he no longer particularly cared to whom. He must simply hold his nose and be done with it.

“Brother?”

Anthony came back to himself in the study. Eloise was staring at him with no small amount of concern. 

“Are you all right, Anthony?”

He shook his head at his own foolishness. “Yes, Sister. My apologies.”

Eloise bent forward a bit, hands searching, her blue eyes wide and imploring. “Well, Brother? What do you recommend I do about my debut?”

Anthony sighed, rubbed his eyes, and picked up his quill, inking another line in the scratch sheet for the next column of tenants - there were still so many names left to check. “You shall accept the fact that we all must do unpleasant things we don’t want to, Eloise. Simply hold your nose and be done with it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: a short AU where Anthony is the one who breaks a leg, not Kate--


End file.
